Punjab Education Minister to Manish Sisodia

Punjab Education Minister Vijay Inder Singla on Sunday advised his Delhi counterpart Manish Sisodia to first check facts regarding the status of ‘learning level and quality’ parameter in the Performance Grading Index before “politicising” the issue. Sisodia had alleged a “secret” friendship between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Amarinder Singh.

The AAP leader’s statement came when Punjab was ranked number one in the Performance Grading Index (PGI) 2019-20 by the Centre. The Punjab chief minister on Saturday had described Sisodia’s accusations as “atrocious”.

Education Minister Singla on Sunday alleged that Sisodia and the Aam Aadmi Party have become so scared of the achievement of Punjab in the field of school education that he has started misleading people with totally false and illogical statements. Singla said Sisodia had been saying that Punjab performed badly in ‘learning level and quality’ in the recent ‘Performance Grading Index’.

“But the fact is if Punjab’s performance is poor, then the performance of Delhi schools is even poorer as the national capital has scored 124 marks. The score of Punjab is 126 in the national achievement survey conducted in 2017,” he said. Singla said Sisodia should verify facts before politicising the issue.

“As the National Achievement Survey (NSA) could not be conducted in November 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Punjab had to be satisfied with the old performance,” he said. “But this time, Punjab was fully prepared and had the NAS been conducted, the Punjab schools in ‘learning level and quality’ would have achieved top rank in this parameter too, he added.

Punjab has never given a political tinge to its movement to bring in qualitative improvement in the education sector, the education minister said, adding that when Delhi bagged the fourth rank last time, no finger was raised on the authenticity of the PGI.

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